Saturday, February 16, 2013

Every time one thinks ....

... the Conservative Party has hit rock bottom a completely new chasm opens before one's feet. To be fair, this story started several days ago and has now been covered by a few people but I think I can add something or other to it all.

About three days ago the Daily Wail published an article in which it told us that

Hertfordshire’s Deputy Police Crime Commissioner Rachel Frosh has resigned today after she retweeted a quote said by Adolf Hitler.

The tweet, which was originally posted by a user under the name Fenrir, said: 'Dear Socialists, embrace your inner Nazism.'

A link took web users to a picture of Adolf Hitler captioned with a quote from him describing the fledgling Nazi party as socialist.

Speaking after the gaffe, she said: 'I recognise that I am not able to fully comment on some political issues whilst remaining as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

'It is therefore with great regret that I have tendered my resignation this morning.'

And that seemed to be that.

On Thursday Rachel Frosh (the Dr is a medical one as she has been that, working in the NHS, for twenty years) wrote a feisty article in The Commentator, in which she explained that although holding those views might hamper in her work as Deputy Police Crime Commissioner, she does not wish to distance herself from the fairly widely held opinion that National Socialism had its origins in socialism. The name is something of a give-away though few people on the left accept that. I recall having the usual sort of argument about Nazism being socialism with somebody solemnly assuring me that it could not be. The word "national" gave the truth away. I replied that I did not see why the word "national" should give anything away while the word "socialist" was ignored.

If one goes through the comments on the article one finds the same arguments rehashed though, I am happy to say, people who appear to know history seem to predominate.

However, I was still ignoring the story, as it seemed such a stupid storm in a teacup. No longer.

Yesterday morning The Commentatorinformed us all that Dr Frosh has now been suspended

from the Conservative Party's candidates list for the next general election, following hysterical coverage of a retweet of hers which linked Nazism to Socialism.

Party sources are reported to have confirmed the suspension in response to the retweet, which mockingly encouraged socialists to embrace their "inner Nazi".

I checked my calendar. No, it was not a particularly cold April 1 but a mildly warm February 15. What on earth is going on?

According to Guido Fawkes a Tory spokesman has confirmed that they viewed the comments as "completely unacceptable" and that she was, indeed, suspended from the party's candidate list.

Douglas Murray points out, as do many of us, that there is a clue in the name. As it happens, there were clues in the various ideas such as the notion of the individual as a cog in the great structure, shared by Nazis and Communists, both of whom grew from socialism.

It is neither an insult to all of the left, nor an attempt to exonerate all of the right, but rather a statement of historical fact that National Socialism had its origins in socialism. If the Conservative party’s apparatchiks look hard enough they will even find a clue in the name. But evidently they are too busy giving in to left-wing twitter-mobs to have time for such a bland and useless thing as historical truth.

James Delingpole calls his blogThe Conservative Party - where telling the truth is a sackable offence and points out that the obvious connection between fascism, socialism and Nazism has always annoyed the left but it is a little odd, to put it mildly, for the Conservative Party to worry about that. When I think what Conservatives of the past, such as Margaret Thatcher, used to say about socialism I have to admit that not one of them would now be able to get to the candidates' list.

Iain Dale points out that he has made comments along those lines years ago and is, therefore, clearly not candidate material. (Actually, he is a better journalist than politician but let that pass.) And we get the same arguments about whether the fact that something is called socialist makes it socialist with at least one commenter saying that neither Stalin nor Hitler ended up as socialists. Let us forget the ideology: socialism is a lovely cuddly-wuddly set of ideas that wants to make a better world and everybody happy but people who claim to be putting that into practice always end up murdering and torturing millions so they cannot possibly be socialists. Or something like that. At least the Nazis had the sense not to confiscate everybody's property and allowed private business as long as the state remained totally in control; the economy did well unlike in the Soviet Union but that does not alter the basic ideas.

Dr Frosh herself has a website on which she explains that she, of all people, having studied Judaism and converted to it, can speak about the roots of Nazism. The special pleading, in my opinion, is unnecessary. Anyone can speak about the roots of Nazism and anyone can point to their essential socialist qualities; and anyone can disagree.

Setting aside what one thinks about the roots of Nazism, there are two things I find particularly appalling. One is the ignorance that is clearly displayed by the Conservative party hierarchy and the other is the notion that perfectly reasonable political views cannot be expressed by candidates if they upset the left-wing consensus of the twitterati. Here, if anywhere we can see the extent to which the left has captured the commanding heights of our cultural life.

It is as if all political parties (including UKIP) are now competing as to which can show itself in a stupider light and lose more support.